Upcoming Remakes No One Asked For

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The originals were great on their own, so why doesn't Hollywood come up with some new ideas for a change?

By Stephen Lambrechts

There once was a time, long ago, when the Hollywood system would come up with brand new ideas for genre films. This time has unfortunately passed, and it's starting to feel like all we have to look forward to is a crop of regurgitated plot lines from movies that are either already sitting on our shelves, or are available within minutes via on-demand services.

Don't get me wrong, there are classic films that are actually remakes themselves, like John Carpenter's The Thing and Brian De Palma's Scarface, though at least these were remakes of extremely old films, and were significantly different in their approaches to the material. Some films in the current line-up of remakes however, only date back to the mid '90s! At this rate, we'll probably be talking about remakes of Fight Club and The Matrix in a few years. When does it end?

With this in mind, we bring you a list of upcoming remakes that no one asked for. Why are they being made? Will they match their predecessors? Probably not, but they're trying anyway. Get your face-palming hand ready…

Straw Dogs

The original Straw Dogs is an incredibly powerful and controversial film from cinema legend Sam Peckinpah, starring Dustin Hoffman. The remake is from the creator of TV's Commander in Chief and stars Cyclops. Slight drop in pedigree, wouldn't you say? Even disregarding this, the film's central conceit of a wet-blanket male character being emasculated by local bumpkins and pushed to the point of explosive violence seems to be completely lost in favour of a standard rape-revenge setup. The original film controversially posited that Hoffman's wife somewhat welcomed her (first) sexual assault because of how fed up she was with her husband's doormat status. This kind of deep examination of sexual politics seems to have been omitted in the new version. We're also supposed to believe that James Marsden is a weak loser. The guy played a freakin' superhero!

Total Recall

Paul Verhoeven's Total Recall, a.k.a. Arnold Schwarzenegger's other sci-fi masterpiece, is being remade as we speak. Underworld-director Len Wiseman has ditched the original's awesome Mars setting, in favour of the Earth-set nation states of Euromerica and New Shanghai, and Colin Farrell takes over the role of Douglas Quaid from Arnold. Oh, and the ultra-violence of the original won't be returning, as the remake is aiming for PG-13 rating. Seriously, who was the #%$@ing idiot that thought any of this was a good idea? If they really think remaking a movie made famous by Arnold Schwarzenegger is a good idea, then maybe someone should introduce them to the makers of the new Conan film.

The Crow

As I've previously stated, the fact that Hollywood is even thinking of revisiting the character of Eric Draven and his quest to "set the wrong things right" is kind of disgraceful. This is the role that Brandon Lee lost his life to, and for that reason alone the film and character have become not only his legacy, but a testament to his sacrifice. The worst part is that the original film is not even old. This mid-90s film not only holds up incredibly well, its style and music are such a product of its time and place that giving it a glossy and expensive-looking Hollywood makeover will only serve to lose what made it great in the first place. Make another crappy sequel if you want, but leave the original story alone. Seriously, even James O'Barr (the creator of The Crow) thinks this is bullshit.

Oldboy

As possibly the most iconic South Korean film of the last decade, Oldboy is the kind of hard-edged, twisted tale that Hollywood would be sure to mess up. This is the story of a man who is imprisoned for 15 years without explanation, only to be released out of the blue with one thing on his mind – revenge. To go into detail about why this film is so dark, is to ruin the film's surprise. The remake was originally slated to be a Steven Spielberg and Will Smith collaboration (holy hell what a nightmare that would be), but the film has now moved into the hands of Spike Lee, with Josh Brolin as his star. This is quite an improvement and shows an understanding of the darkness inherent in the storyline. While this could turn out to be cool, it doesn't stop the remake from being unnecessary, as the original is quite accessible already. It's incredibly stylish and beautifully filmed, with excellent performances and features one of the most iconic fight sequences in recent memory. Why bother doing it again? So we don't have to read subtitles? That's just silly…

Evil Dead

No Sam Raimi in the director's chair? No Bruce Campbell? No dice.

Robocop

The concept of Paul Verhoeven's Robocop, which is that of a good policeman rescued from death and turned into a crime-fighting cyborg by an evil corporation of yuppies, is such a product of the '80s that making it now will pretty much lose the satirical aspect that makes the film such a clever blast. Much like Zack Snyder's remake of Dawn of the Dead completely dropped the social commentary that was so prevalent in George A. Romero's original, I feel like any modern remake of Robocop will just focus on action and sci-fi elements, which would be a shame. Robocop needs a tongue-in-cheek approach to its violence, or else it just comes off as sadistic.

Bloodsport

Many consider Bloodsport to be their favourite Jean-Claude Van Damme movie, and with good reason. The 'inspired by true events (though that is up for debate)' story of Kumite champion Frank Dux features all the hallmarks of a classic '80s tournament movie: the brilliant soundtrack (featuring songs by Stan Bush), the training montage, the evil villain, another fighting montage, the friend that gets hurt and must be avenged, and the triumphant comeback during the last battle. The film is a joy to watch, and is up there with Enter the Dragon as one of the best tournament films that the Martial Arts genre has to offer. Now a Phillip Noyce-directed remake is on the cards, about a war vet that goes to Brazil and enters a martial arts contest. Throw in a brother character and you basically have Warrior 2: Electric Boogaloo.

The Toxic Avenger

Troma is a company known for low budget, adults only, politically-incorrect films that feature as many head-crushings as they do bare breasts, and The Toxic Avenger series has these things in spades. (Seriously, the last film featured a super hero named Master Bater. Want to guess what his power was?) So obviously, the only logical thing for Hollywood to do is take this cult gem, pour toxic waste onto it, and mutate it into a family-friendly PG-13 crap-fest. Let's hope this remake, from Hot Tub Time Machine writer/director Steve Pink, ends up being based on the short-lived animated series Toxic Crusaders instead, so that The Toxic Avenger name can continue to live on untarnished.

The Warriors/The Wild Bunch

Director Tony Scott has caught remake-fever lately, with his recent and useless re-imagining of The Taking of Pelham 123 kicking things off. He currently has remakes of Walter Hill's incredible cult-classic The Warriors, and Sam Peckinpah's masterpiece The Wild Bunch in the pipeline.

Scott's vision for The Warriors involves dropping the crazy, over-the-top comic-book style of the original, by relocating the action from New York to Los Angeles, and using real gangs that consist of thousands of members. While this is a great premise for a gritty gang movie, it isn't what The Warriors is all about. The original is great because it's a film that's colourful, quotable and filled with retro '70s charm. You take that away and you have nothing, just a generic premise loosely-based on stories of Greek legend. If it doesn't have gangs like The Baseball Furies and The Boppers in it, then it shouldn't exist. Can you dig it, sucka?

As the second Sam Peckinpah film to be featured on this list, The Wild Bunch is an undisputed classic about a gang of outlaws on the U.S./Mexico border in the year 1913 trying to adjust to the 'new' civilised world after their last big heist leads them to retire. Word is that the remake might bring the action into the modern era, featuring criminals and border patrolmen. Really though, why even bother doing this story if isn't going to have an olden-day western setting? I'm guessing it's so he can cast Denzel Washington as the lead. Actually, why bother approaching this story again at all? The original's theme of violent wild-west outlaws not fitting in with changing societal culture would have no relevance in the modern era. Seriously, with Tony Scott at the helm, it is extremely unlikely that this remake would be anything other than a disposable action movie that would be forgotten within a couple of weeks.

Escape From New York

Sahara and The Crazies director Breck Eisner is attached to direct a remake of this John Carpenter masterpiece, and while this is hardly ideal, at least it's no longer in the hands of the once-attached Brett Ratner (I get night-terrors just thinking about his involvement). The problem isn't that the premise is untouchable (because lord knows that 1997 didn't turn out quite the way that this film envisioned it), it's that you can't just take the character of Snake Plissken and drop another actor in his boots. The role is synonymous with Kurt Russell, in the same way that Harry Callahan is synonymous with Clint Eastwood – any other actor playing those roles would just seem like a pale imitation, and who needs that?

The Girl with the Dragon Tattoo

Okay, I'll admit that everything that has come out of this remake so far looks and sounds awesome, which is expected when David Fincher is the director. It still doesn't change the fact that this remake is completely unnecessary; more so than pretty much every other film on this list. The original film only came out a couple of years ago, and was not only well-received, it was also a commercial success, making over $100 million globally from its budget of $13 million. So just because it didn't fare quite as well in the United States, we're taking this very-Swedish story and remaking it with English speaking actors using Swedish accents. Really? That's what we're coming to now? Is it really that hard to read subtitles? Was the original's Swedish-speaking too authentic? Too believable? Oh well, I guess it's all worth it for the Trent Reznor and Atticus Ross score alone.

So how do you feel about the upcoming slate of unimaginative remakes? Sound off in the comments section!